You have to make a choice fast, while their backs are turned. You choose:
A hyena. Go to chapter 9.
A K-9 police dog. Go to chapter 10.
A giraffe. Go to chapter 11.
The hyena morph roars to life — a creature bound by one instinct: To kill.
The K-9 dogs take off. They are just a streak of fur. You watch them, considering the chase. But you smell better prey.
“What the —” The policeman turns, sees you, and leaps into the van. Locks the door and reaches for a gun.
You note this, but you don’t care. It just doesn’t interest you. You lope away, down the path toward the snack bar. People scatter, small prey that you consider. But you smell something better.
The primitive urge to have meat is so strong that you can’t fight it. You forget your name and who you are. You pick up the pace as the scent of prey grows stronger.
Stop! Your mind screams the word. You’re human! You don’t kill!
But the hyena is ruthless and fearless, and doesn’t stop.
You hear a loud noise. A siren. People are screaming. Workers are rushing toward you, then stopping. One of them has a net.
You hunker down. You’re cornered now. You’ll have to go for the closest prey.
Small prey. Light hair grows out of the head. One of the species’s young. She wanders away from her mother. Good.
It’s a child! It’s a little girl! No!
You can’t fight it! You feel the hyena’s killing instinct, and you struggle. The workers are closing in with the net. One of them carries a tranquilizer gun. He is trying to get clear to aim.
The prey toddles toward you. The mother screams. You feel the short hind legs of the hyena contract. The muscles tense. The powerful jaw opens and you let out that inhuman cry. ERRRR-UP!
It silence everyone. They all fear you. You own this place. This prey is yours.
No!
With a last, desperate struggle, you take over the hyena instinct. You turn toward the worker with the gun.
You feel the burning sensation, and immediately, your legs feel heavy. Slowly, you slump to the ground.
Sting! You’re knocked out. When you awake, you will have to deal with the horror of being permanently stuck in hyena morph, a creature without mercy, a killing machine.
You couldn’t control the hyena instinct in time. Bad morph!
You reach out and touch the K-9 dog Princie’s coat. The dog closes his eyes. You concentrate.
The police have their backs to you. It’s now or never. There’s that strange sensation again, of bones crunching, things growing that shouldn’t be growing. You touch your ears and feel fur. You suddenly drop down on all fours and notice that you have paws instead of hands and feet.
And the smell! You smell everything! Food! People! Animals! It’s overwhelming at first. The other dogs cock their heads and look at you curiously. The one called Princie smells you and howls. After all, she’s smelling herself.
The two policemen look over.
“Hey, Seidel,” the taller one says. “Thought you only brought two dogs.”
“Must have loaded a third — hey! The kid is missing!”
They rush over. You stand alert, tail twitching, like the other dogs. You’re not just a dog. You’re a cop. You have discipline.
It’s a good morph, you tell yourself. In a minute, they’ll give up on a harmless kid who stuck a toe in the wrong habitat. Big deal. It’s not like you’re a big bad criminal. They’ll load you into the van, take you back to the station, and you can take off from there.
“This isn’t good, Finley,” Seidel says.
“We’re supposed to be on alert,” Finley answers, frowning. “Especially for kids.”
Especially for kids?
“Wait, here’s a shoe.” One of them has spied your sneaker! “The dogs can track the kid.”
He holds the sneaker under your nose. Scent roars in. Your scent. The other dogs smell, then strain at the leashes.
“We’ll keep the one off-line, see what happens,” Finley says.
The two dogs take off, and you follow, your nose to the ground, then in the air. Incredible. You can smell yourself. You can follow the air currents, know where you walked and stopped.
The dogs follow your trail to the admission booth. They circle, and you do, too. Of course you know which way you went. You go in the opposite direction, but the other two take off down the sidewalk. Darn!
You bound up behind them while the two cops hold the two leashes. Why didn’t you walk on the sidewalk? That would have confused the scent. Instead, you had stuck to the grassy part near the curb. The dog can smell your trail easily.
“They’ve picked it up,” Seidel says. He sounds relieved. More relieved than he should sound, since he’s only tracking a kid.
“Chapman says at least one of the kids infiltrated The Sharing meeting,” Finley says.
The policemen are Controllers!
And they’ll follow your scent straight to your house. To your family.
“I reported that kid who was hanging around the dunes,” Seidel answers. “The others are going to pick her up. It won’t be long before she’s one of us.”
Cassie. She was the one who’d hung out on the dunes, watching over Jake in his dog morph. Cassie was in danger! You have to warn her. Warn the others.
The other dogs lose your scent. You almost lose it yourself. You’re in a more trafficked area of town now, near the Civic Center. Earlier, you had stopped at the center garage to leave a note on your mom’s car. You said you’d be late for dinner.
Even later than you’d thought.
You hurry past the garage, but the other dogs suddenly pick up your scent. They race into the garage. The cops follow, running after them.
“This isn’t good!” Seidel says in a low voice. You pick up his words easily with your dog
